Electronic Arts Slashes Workforce

Dawn Kawamoto writes "Electronic Arts has been slashing jobs in recent weeks and according to Kotaku the size of the layoffs has reached as much as 10 percent of its workforce. The game maker says it's making the move to align its workforce closer to mobile and new technologies. For the console dinosaur that's trying to fight extinction by evolving into a bigger mobile player, this process has been a painful transition with a number of employees ending up in the tar pit - as well as its CEO."

Comments

EA is burning

[Moheeheeko]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Re:EA is burning

[gmhowell]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Re:EA is burning

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Eh, don't worry so much. Do you really think that EA would resort to firing their supply of awful people before they run out of alternatives?

Re:EA is burning

[Arith]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Toxic marshmallows give superpowers

Re:EA is burning

[Hentes]

Capitalism at work.

Re:EA is burning

[Moheeheeko]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Toxic marshmallows give superpowers

"And Meltman, with the power to...melt!"

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism at work.

Indeed. It beats the company completely going out of business, and everyone is out of work. Sometimes it takes cutting to gain more in the end.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

I want everybody to take a good look at this because this just proves what some of us have been saying all along, which is voting with your dollars works it just isn't magic and when you are talking about a large corp with a huge bank account it takes time to work.

I mean look at how well it has worked with consumer friendly gaming companies VS consumer unfriendly gaming companies, Valve treats customers well, has doubled their profits for 7 years in a row, EA treats customers like shit? Laying off workers after the CEO bailed rather than be fired, Ubisoft who used to practically give bonuses to those in the company who could come up with a nastier way to treat customers? Removed their DRM from their current titles and from what i understand is putting out patches that remove it from previous titles, and of course Activision which is "restructuring" which is a nice way of saying "trying to stop the bleeding".

So voting with your dollars DOES WORK, it is just like any real solution isn't a magic wand one can wave to make things change instantly. As I pointed out to those that poo pooed the idea "At least i'm not paying for the right to be treated like shit" and by refusing to give those that treat me as dirt money I know I'm doing my little part in making sure they don't get rewarded for being assholes while at the same time having plenty of truly great games to play. its not like there aren't plenty of companies out there that won't be happy to treat you as a valued customer, when the stink about Diablo 3 being always online so they could nickel and dime you with money markets hit I spread the word about how Runic games was even allowing modding in Torchlight II and had a lot of folks tell me how much they loved the game. BTW if anybody doesn't have it yet? Great game and to celebrate adding Steam workshop support they gave us the Half Life headcrab as one of the pet choices. of course i had to name mine Lamar, just wouldn't be right otherwise LOL.

If a company insists on treating you like shit? Don't buy from that company and be quick to point out alternatives to anybody who is thinking of buying it. As we can plainly see here it does work, it simply takes time to hurt a huge corp like EA.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is still DRM. The fact that some people who claim to oppose DRM support Steam is rather hypocritical.

Re:EA is burning

[tompaulco]

My dollars didn't vote for mobile gaming. If my dollars could vote, they would vote for just the OPPOSITE of mobile gaming. That's why I didn't buy Simcity 5. I have spent close to $1,000 on Simcity franchise over the years, but they are reducing it to a point and drool game where you have to be online to play. No thanks. I want a single player game where I can play it somewhere where I may not have internet access. Something like an upgraded Simcity.
Even Simcity 4 started to suck, what with all the asinine mini-games, many of which were hard to control and most of which seemed about as engaging and thought provoking as your average $1 phone game. To make matters worse, many of these crappy mini-games were required to open certain options in the main game.

Re:EA is burning

[wierd_w]

You are missing the point.

EA wants to get paid as much as possible, while changing as little as possible. That's why they are trying a desperate gambit to jump to mobile gaming. (They believe that the mobile gaming ecosystem is more friendly to obtrusive DRM, and they are partly right.)

The GP said that voting with his dollars is working: EA games is feeling heat under the collar. However, because of the above, they purposefully look away from the burning handwriting, and feel that leaving the building is the better solution. The GP's point was that we must inform that this will not work, by continueing to ostracise them as a company, for refusing to change their core policies which are so objectionable. The fact that they are trying to jump the shark like this is evidence that they feel threatened, and that this tactic is effective.

Continue to deny the cocksuckers money, and their costly pradigm shift and phyrric restructuring will leave them hemmoraging on the table.

The false dichotomy your reply implies, is that without EA games making console and PC games, that there won't be such titles created. This is simply untrue; the removal of an obstructionist whore of a company like EA from that market will only create market opportunities for new game publishers. The money in console gaming isn't gone; it was simply denied to EA games. When other publishers continue to be profitable, after EA's death, it will create a real datapoint to cite when discussing the market impacts of obtrusive DRM, and refusing to listen to customer complaints.

Let EA games try to escape from the burning light. Just keep the magnifier on them, and they will dry up, just like the worms they are.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not convinced that the layoff is due to lack of Sim City sales. While I have no inside knowledge, I'll be willing to bet that EA is financially stable and this is just a move by management to streamline their workforce. Drop the dead weight and rehire fresh new programmers that don't make as much and work longer hours. With the poor sales of a few titles, they have reasonable excuse to dump people that won't jeopardize morale . When I was a consultant, I saw several companies do this (e.g. stock market fluctuations, 9/11, etc.).

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

There are some games sold on Steam with zero DRM and can run completely independently of the client, but the number of DRM-free games vastly pale in comparison to the total number in Steam's catalogue. Plus you won't know it's DRM free unless you buy it, or someone's found out and posted the info somewhere, since this fact isn't displayed anywhere on the game's respective Store page.

I'm only pointing this out before someone else argues that Steam does have DRM-free games. Yeah it does, but it's hard enough to know what they are and since it's not common enough, it's just easier to assume they all do. And for this reason I don't use Steam... but that makes me something of a weird outsider with PC gaming, which I'm happy with.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

I have spent close to $1,000 on Simcity franchise over the years

How?!? There's only so many SimCity games out there...

Re:EA is burning

[darkfeline]

I think those people really just oppose bullshit DRM. Steam DRM is very tame and reasonable, and I think most people don't really have anything against DRM as a concept that help protect game devs a little from possible lost profits; it's the bullshit DRM that get in the way of legitimate players playing the game that's the problem.

Re:EA is burning

[sunwukong]

Quick, license that IP and put it on Origin!

Re:EA is burning

[mad-seumas]

This ^

Re:EA is burning

[noh8rz10]

he's including Sims and sims IAP.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. While the nature of DRM and content ownership might be off-putting to many people, it's really about the obtrusiveness and inconvenience that is the deal breaker for most people. If you can manage to deliver a service that actually is convenient and potentially cost saving to the consumer, the existence of DRM becomes an acceptable trade off. The issue with EA is the business model and mentality, rather than the simple existence of DRM. While Valve has made a business of providing free content updates and modding support for free 3rd party content, EA has shifted to a model that fleeces its customers where ever possible, limiting community support in an attempt to monetize whenever and where ever they can. They give you only just enough content for your dollar and not a penny more, under the assumption that they can then charge you extra in the future for features that would have been considered must-have only a few years prior.

Re:EA is burning

[RogueyWon]

You're right, of course.

But there's another, related lesson in all of this; one that's more for businesses than consumers. The irony is, it's not a new lesson; it's one that has been well known for decades (centuries?), but which seems to have been forgotten recently in a good chunk of the gaming industry.

That lesson is: "Your brands matter. Protect their value."

I'm sure that on one level, EA understands this. In fact, I suspect a few parts of the company (mainly those who handle its cash-cow sports titles, which remain well-received and commercially successful) understand it very well. It spends a fortune on advertising. It's known to throw its weight around when major releases get lackluster reviews. But at the same time, it has worked very hard in recent years to take some of the most potent brand names in gaming and drag them through the mud. And then set fire to them. And then take a dump on the remains.

A few examples: their acquisition of Bioware looked at the time like a bit of reputation control. Their name was in the crapper, so they tried to associate themselves with the halo surrounding one of the most highly regarded developers in the business. However, with Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, that brand very quickly ended up tarnished. Now, views will vary on EA's responsibility for that (personal view; extensive in the case of Dragon Age 2, but Mass Effect 3's failings felt mostly inflicted by people within Bioware). It wasn't just the disappointing games either; the day-1 DLC, starting from the original Dragon Age onwards (and I'd never accuse that game of being disappointing) did a lot to erode consumer good will and cement a reputation for nickel-and-diming customers who had purchased already expensive games. In fact, many of the post-launch DLC packs for EA/Bioware games have been good value, but the reputational damage is done by the day-1 stuff.

Or take Command & Conquer; one of the absolutely core franchises in the history of PC gaming. Actually, EA's history here is more complicated than it might appear. Westwood had itself done all it possibly could to tarnish this brand, with C&C2 and Red Alert 2, both of which felt years behind the curve at the point of release. EA's first move on acquiring the franchise was a bit odd and bewildering - sticking the name onto Generals - a title that clearly had little to do with Command & Conquer (which isn't to say that it was bad, just that it didn't look or feel like a C&C game). However, EA then seemed to buck its ideas up; C&C3 and Red Alert 3 were both, in their own ways, high quality titles and felt like a return to grace for the series. So what a pity that the usual EA self-destructive tendencies were allowed to take over; C&C4 was clearly rushed to release and was crippled by barely-functional always-online DRM. Since then, all we've seen has been some craptacular gestures towards the pay-to-win market.

And then there's SimCity. I won't dwell on this at length; the discussion is live across many, many gaming sites at the moment. But again, EA has taken a loved and respected franchise and smeared it in excrement. In fact, in this case, EA's reputation was already bad enough that I didn't make the mistake of buying this title.

The result of this? At one point, Bioware games - and games with the C&C or SimCity name on them - would have been guaranteed purchases for me (and, I suspect, for a lot of other people). As of now, though, I would sniff carefully around the reviews of a Bioware game, and wouldn't touch a C&C or a SimCity with a barge pole. The brand value has been substantially diminished or outright destroyed. There are other examples too; I loved the old (early 2000s) Medal of Honor games - but the first of EA's recent reboots was grim enough that I didn't touch its sequel and they've now canned the franchise again because a lot of other people clearly felt the same.

Funny thing is, EA aren't (quite) the worst in the industry at this. Dire though they are, I don't th

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but steam is drm done right. They may take rights away from me, but they more than make up for it by being so damn convinient. Also, steam doesn't force games to use drm.

Re:EA is burning

[Opportunist]

There's DRM and there's DRM. Now, I won't say "good" vs. "bad" DRM, because inherently, from the consumer point of view, there's no such thing as "good" DRM. At best, there can be "acceptable" DRM. What's "acceptable" is up to the user himself, though.

Some people don't mind that selling their games is made impossible because they keep every game they buy anyway, so it does not restrict them. Others find it insufferable because their "game economy cycle" depends on them being able to sell old games to buy new ones. Some people don't mind "always on" DRM because they only play multiplayer games anyway where not having a connection to the internet means not playing the game, or because they have a stable connection and leave it up all the time, others may consider that a completely unacceptable restriction because their connection is crappy, because they don't play multiplayer and don't want their game to suddenly shut down on them for no game related reason, or simply because they don't trust the maker of the game to keep the controlling server running or offer a patch when they shut it off. That last part being maybe a problem by itself for some gamers, who enjoy pulling out an old game every now and then, while others won't worry about it since they only play the most recent installment of their favorite games and never look back.

As you see, what gamers will accept and what they will not highly depends on the individual gamer. One thing is certain: Some kind of DRM will be in the games. Even if they have to return to messing with the CD/DVD/BluRay standard and creating discs that you cannot copy for some obscure reason. The game makers of course want total control over their games, but as we can see now, that doesn't fly because the customer doesn't play along. So they'll backpedal a bit and test the waters again until they see what we'll swallow.

Steam is popular because they already kinda found that sweet spot between them wanting control and the player wanting it to "just work". Steam pretty much locks you into their service because a lot, maybe nearly all or even all, of your games are in there. Lose control of your Steam account, lose control of your library of games. Banned from one (VAC) game, banned from pretty much all of them. These are of course issues that loom over the heads of Steam users, but that seems to be something they can accept. The games work, installing them is trivial at worst (9 out of 10 games just install and you're good to go), no worries with authentication servers or similar bullshit, and that's something gamers can apparently accept.

Re:EA is burning

[Opportunist]

Well, the different between voting with your dollar/feet and voting in elections is that the former is based on the past, not the promise of the future. Thinking about it, it should be the same in elections, why are people more easily tricked into believing something when ... anyway.

What we see here is a vote AGAINST always-on DRM, not a vote FOR mobile gaming. Whether people vote for mobile gaming is something to be seen. Personally, I'm with you on this one, I play on computers and MAYBE on a console if there's a good reason for it, but I have my phone for making calls. Mostly 'cause the games offered for it are not worth my time or money, and neither are games that resemble them on a PC.

Re:EA is burning

[Cederic]

Steam's DRM is far less obtrusive than the DRM used on games I bought in 1986. In 1987. In 1988...1991...1995...2001...2008

Then I started using Steam.

Re:EA is burning

[Opportunist]

In other words, fire the guys you've driven into burnout, haul in new ones to burn through.

Employees aren't assets anymore. They're just means of production.

Re:EA is burning

[Cederic]

Who needs Sims? We have Dwarf Fortress.

Re:EA is burning

[Shimbo]

i had to name mine Lamar, just wouldn't be right otherwise

Lamarr. FTFY ;)

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

You're probably confusing DRM with copy-protection. There's a difference. The difference being that DRM can end up revoking or blocking access to the content you paid for, whereas copy-protection in said years would have basically ammounted to a serial code, or a code wheel, or checking the CD during startup (*). All of which CANNOT BE TAKEN FROM YOU KATE unless through physical means, which ain't gonna happen. But if Valve goes kaput, or Steam's offline mode fails during an extended net outage or whatever, you can't play what you bought. But you can with copy protection in the forms which were present in your listed years. That's the difference.

(*) I'll give you that CD checking was stupid, as you have to ensure the disc was still in good condition which would never happen over time, plus drives would often misread and fail to pass the check, and making backups of the disc would often fail since the deliberate errors introduced to authenticate a legitimate disc wouldn't be transferred. But Internet-based checking to me is not a good alternative.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

I should also add that I'm writing this while being rather tired, and I have no idea who Kate is. :)

Re:EA is burning

[jones_supa]

There are some games sold on Steam with zero DRM and can run completely independently of the client, but the number of DRM-free games vastly pale in comparison to the total number in Steam's catalogue. Plus you won't know it's DRM free unless you buy it, or someone's found out and posted the info somewhere, since this fact isn't displayed anywhere on the game's respective Store page.

And even if you get a game without DRM from Steam, you don't get it with a nice installer package which you can archive and own forever. Like you do with games from GOG.

Re:EA is burning

[jones_supa]

It's sad that you think that you can have your rights taken away from you if they are otherwise nice to you.

Re:EA is burning

[lexsird]

I can't wait to dance on their fucking grave.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Just shove it in a ZIP file. Installers generally do no magic beyond making a shortcut, and then shoving everything into a predetermined directory. Registry keys were more prevalent 10+ years ago, but are unused these days.

Re:EA is burning

[Cederic]

Fair point regarding DRM vs Copy Protection. I take solace in my ability to strip the DRM from Steam games if they ever withdraw the service, and/or take them to court for restitution.

Of course, the copy protection often led to loss of access - losing the code wheel or the casette inlay, installing software the game manufacturer's rootkit wouldn't work with, etc.

I will concede though that I too have no idea who Kate is.

Re:EA is burning

[lexsird]

I'm with you. Anything with their logo on it is a boycott for me. I'm sure people will track them as they try to squirm away. They have evoked the wrath of gamers and they will find we are an unforgiving lot. Track them, never buy a thing any of them produce, no matter where they hide, no matter what they change their names to, whatever. All the way down to flipping burgers, if you find one flipping burgers, throw it in their face and demand your money back.

Examples must be made and EA should become a cautionary tale that companies tell around the campfire to scare the living shit out of each other. Behold the power of a a completely pissed off customer base. Release the Kraken.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

What you are doing is no different than the bullshit the GPL guys use to make BSD sound evil, you are throwing out doom scenarios which I can say in the future RMS and Torvalds will eat babies and what do ya know? just as accurate or useful.

Can you name ONE PERSON, just one, that had their games taken away that WERE NOT being giant fucking douchebags and ruining the game for everyone else? because i sure as hell can't, the only ones I've EVER heard of get banhammered from Steam were the cocksuckers using wallhacks and aimbots that frankly just destroy MP for everybody else. those people would have been banned with a retail disc just as quickly if a company gave a shit about its MP because the surest way to kill a game is to do nothing about cheaters.

but bitching about what Steam could or could not do in the future is NO different than me saying RMS will burn babies in the future, in both cases we have absolutely zero evidence to back this up and are pulling shit out of our rear ends.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

RMS is a fucking dickhead. I don't care about those GPL-obsessed idiots - I'm just looking out for long term protection of the content I buy. Valve are nice nowadays, but who's to day they won't become greedy and act like dicks (EA) in the future? If I can buy games DRM-free, I can walk away from a vendor if I choose not to want to have anything more to do with them, and can still keep the games. Right now, that's not possible short of cracks.

Please hairfeet, I like you. I know you're going on the attack because you've had to deal with dickheads for years on Slashdot, so believe me when I say I'm not trying to be obsessive or zealotry. I sincerely believe DRM is not necessary in this day and age, and I don't see how wanted to stay far away from it is such a crazy notion. But I won't get angry with anyone for wanting to use Steam. It's a great platform, minus the DRM of course.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

Aye, given Steam has been out for long enough it doesn't halt the creation of cracks one bit (crack one Steam game, you've cracked them all). Though I doubt there are cracks for Steam games on Linux yet. If that ever happens, you KNOW the year of the Linux desktop has arrived. :)

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Just pirate the fucking games already and stop whining about Steam. Shit it's way I do, plus I don't end up missing out on AAA titles. Thanks RELOADED!

Re:EA is burning

[Culture20]

, Ubisoft who used to practically give bonuses to those in the company who could come up with a nastier way to treat customers? Removed their DRM from their current titles and from what i understand is putting out patches that remove it from previous titles

Did I miss this, or do I hate ubisoft so much that I ignored the news?

Re:EA is burning

[lxs]

You're talking about video games right? Those things that you play for a week or two and then never touch again? I agree that DRM is wrong in principle but I can't get too worked up about video game DRM as long as it doesn't interfere with playing.
Besides, cracking game protection has been a tried and true entry into assembly and disassembly skills for generations of geeks.

Re:EA is burning

[RaceProUK]

You do know installers check to make sure things like DirectX (and/or other dependencies) are installed first?

Re:EA is burning

[lehphyro]

gog.com is still much better because you don't have to be connected to steam to validate your ownership of a game. You don't have to deal with buggy software and games that don't work correctly with it as bonus. Just double-click the executable and be happy.

Re:EA is burning

[Imrik]

Copy-protection is a subset of DRM.

Re:EA is burning

[Stuarticus]

Sounds like you're playing the wrong games.

Re:EA is burning

[TechieRefugee]

Oh, if only I could give +1 Nostalgia...

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need DRM to nanny me into not pirating a game. I buy the games I want to play and help fund the development of the companies that make them as a way to encourage them to make more. There will always be a certain amount of parasitic element and aggravating and inconveniencing your paying customers is not a good way to minimize. it.

Re:EA is burning

[Grygus]

That trade-off (losing rights to gain happiness) is the basis of our civilization.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

which is voting with your dollars works

EA for the last 10 years has had 1 or 2 hits here and there. But most of what they make is rather bland. They could have had a monster hit with sim city 4. But the management at that studio decided to online DRM it. Which lead to not more people buying the game but a PR disaster. The DRM is inconsequential the store people heard was 'does not work' and 'the cities are too small'.

Most customers do not care about DRM. Do you think joe blow gamer who wants to blow up aliens gives 2 shits about DRM? Maybe in a vague sense but all he cares about when forking over cash is 'play this game'.

Steam is one giant DRM schema. Dont think so? Ok yank the Ethernet plug on your computer and see how many games still work (some will, some will not). Steam is working because it is a good delivery mechanism that lets you move from computer to computer (and was tied to one of the most popular games ever). Yet it is still DRM. Can I resell my games? Can I give away a game I already played? Can I let my wife borrow one of my games for a few hours while I play a different game from my account without having to resort to tricks? That is digital rights management, the Steam guys are 'managing' my rights.

You know what customers care about? Great games. Boring bland games that do not work out of the box? Not so much... EA has the second problem not the first. The created 'origin' because they saw that like Apple Steam wanted a slice of the pie. They do not want to give that away anymore.

Most of these systems fail my 'will I be able to play it in 20 years'. I have a huge library of games. I pull out old ones all the time and give them a whirl. I can do that because there is no server that it has to talk to.

Re:EA is burning

[Kelbear]

OP is correct.

Not having Steam's "DRM" is a negative point for me when I look at a game. Thankfully Steam allows me to add non-steam games into the library for my tracking, but I still can't delete, install, and re-patch them through Steam's "DRM". They also don't come with the Steam overlay. To be clear, I /want/ all of my games to have Steam's "DRM".

If you don't understand why people like "DRM" that is providing clear benefits to them, but hate "DRM" that does nothing but provide clear detriment to them, you're just being intentionally obtuse. If you care about the risk of losing old games 10-15 years from now when Valve could theoretically lose both it's tremendous profits and the mountain of capital it has built up, and suddenly go out of business in a short period of time before releasing a rescue patch, that's fine. I don't pretend that risk doesn't exist, I've fully considered it, and I've decided I don't care about it. Steam has reduced game prices in the market so dramatically so that my purchasing concerns have more to do with time than with price. I can't play all the new games I want to play, I'm really not worried about being able to play the games I've already played.

Re:EA is burning

[Kelbear]

This is ostensibly the model for the accounting industry. The best opportunities in accounting start in public accounting where they have 60 hour minimums, but it is rare to work the minimum, most work more than 60, ranging past 100 hours a week.

But these jobs provide guaranteed, rapid advancement relative to private accounting which has uncertain, and potentially slower advancement. Thus the industry has had a stable stream of fodder, allowing these companies to survive for literally centuries.

Re:EA is burning

[drinkypoo]

The problem with this idea is that no one has adequately explained why we should expect Steam to last forever, or why we should expect them to even be legally able to make good on their promise to free all Steam games should Steam ever actually go under. I still play some of the very earliest games I paid for. But the body of law suggests that you will eventually be unable to legally play your Steam purchases.

Re:EA is burning

[drinkypoo]

Not having Steam's "DRM" is a negative point for me when I look at a game. Thankfully Steam allows me to add non-steam games into the library for my tracking, but I still can't delete, install, and re-patch them through Steam's "DRM". They also don't come with the Steam overlay. To be clear, I /want/ all of my games to have Steam's "DRM".

You're confusing Steam's DRM with Steam the distribution platform. There are games on Steam which have no DRM. Your comment is invalid because you have no idea what you are talking about. HTH, HAND.

Re:EA is burning

[Kelbear]

That's why I put "DRM" in quotes.Did you not notice this? Their DRM comes part and parcel with the platform for better and for worse.

The point here is that Steam is providing value to it's customers while taking away something they don't care about. If I give you something worth $2 dollars, and take away something worth $1, do you want that deal? How about if I take something worth $1, and give you nothing? Would you want that deal? If you can understand the difference in these two propositions you can understand why Steam is popular, and other publisher's DRM draws so much ire. Otherwise, like I said, you're being intentionally obtuse. If you don't like Steam's DRM, factor that into valuation of the purchase. If the cost outweighs the benefit, you know what to do.

Re:EA is burning

[drinkypoo]

That's why I put "DRM" in quotes.Did you not notice this? Their DRM comes part and parcel with the platform for better and for worse.

No, no it does not. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. Steam games have DRM. They can use Valve's DRM which they made for Steam, or they can use their own DRM. DRM is completely orthogonal to Steam distribution.

Otherwise, like I said, you're being intentionally obtuse.

No, you are being ignorant and making incorrect statements.

If you don't like Steam's DRM,

Then I will continue to explain why I don't like it on slashdot, just as you are free to try to explain why you do like it, and prove that you don't understand it in the process. You don't need to tell me what to do. I am already not giving Valve my money.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

From what I can tell, the most common response to that is "well, if Valve goes under and I can't find any way to play my Steam games anymore, by that time I'll probably be bored of the games anyway. The games are often so cheap, I'll have gotten my money's worth out of them by then anyway."

Which seems rather short-sighted and a waste of gaming art and history.

Re:EA is burning

[Jaysyn]

That's why I put "DRM" in quotes.Did you not notice this? Their DRM comes part and parcel with the platform for better and for worse.

No, it doesn't.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/list_of_drmfree_games_on_steam/page1

If the Steam platform (*not CEG*) is DRM then that makes the package manager for any given Linux distro DRM as well.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

That is true, yes. But DRM is basically controlled over the Internet, whereas copy protection was traditionally based on something more physical and local. Furthermore, since your rights are "managed" (hence the acronym), the vendor has the power to mismanage depending on how things are going (servers are down, etc), whereas traditional copy protection doesn't have that issue since once you have the game, that's it as far as the vendor's concerned.

So DRM = copy protection, but copy protection /= DRM... not necessarily anyway.

Re:EA is burning

[interkin3tic]

I agree. "Voting with your wallet" only works if you agree with the demographic that is "voting" the most. In this case, as with many other cases, it's utter morons who are voting the most.

Actual voting, of course, works only slightly better, since the idiots can only vote once.

Re:EA is burning

[interkin3tic]

It's the new Iron law of wages. Except now without any pretense of it being better for them, because if you paid them much more than they need to not starve, they'd fuck like rabbits until they had more mouths to feed and were back to near-starvation. Now the reason is "Because the market! Investors!"

Ideally we'd get to the point of complete honesty, where workers are always plainly "Because fuck you, that's why," and then no one could possibly pretend that it was better for everyone this way.

Re:EA is burning

[Minwee]

But these jobs provide guaranteed, rapid advancement

So does serving in the Imperial navy under Darth Vader, but having a plentiful supply of rapidly cooling and slightly bloodstained shoes to fill isn't always a good sign.

Re:EA is burning

[sesshomaru]

If you would like to meet Kate, I suggest you go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, and say "Bloody Kate" three times in front of the darkened mirror.

DRM versus Copy-protection: I have re-bought games on Steam because I lost the 16 digit CD key necessary to reinstall them with the CD and they cost 5 Yankee dollars on Steam. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

(Yes, I could have hunted for a hack, but I can do that for the Steam games as well. Again, six of one, half a dozen of the other.)

Re:EA is burning

[BitZtream]

Right click the game in your Steam Library ...

Backups are hard .. when theres a menu option and freaking wizard to do it for you.

Before you tell us how much steam sucks ...you should use it once or twice.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on what you consider a "right."

Re:EA is burning

[noh8rz10]

i had a Sim named sadam who ddin't know how to cook so he kept setting everything on fire and really had to go to the bathroom so he was always angry.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look past the headlines and ask actual gamers, the reason they all hate EA is because EA takes good games, adds a healthy dose of rushed development with a dash of premature release, and sells you a steaming pile of not-working for $20 more than the average price of games because they spent half the budget on a single non-in-game trailer to promote it. Thereby artificially raising everyone's prices so there's more profit to use on advertising so they can sell crap that isn't done well because they don't spend the money to do it well.

^ Notice self-fulfilling nature of the infinite loop.

Re:EA is burning

[Cederic]

If you would like to meet Kate, I suggest you go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, and say "Bloody Kate" three times in front of the darkened mirror.

Tried that. My cats walked in, looked at me disdainfully and walked out again.

I have re-bought games on Steam because I lost the 16 digit CD key necessary to reinstall them with the CD and they cost 5 Yankee dollars on Steam.

I've bought games on steam because it's too much hassle digging through the cupboard to find the CDs in the first place. And because in my younger days I maybe couldn't afford all of the games I liked. Just don't ask how I knew I liked them.

These days I own a hundred games on Steam that I've never played - on Steam. Some of them are because they came in bundles, some are to reward developers from years past, some are just ones I haven't gotten around to yet. Steam makes it easy for me to reward developers for great games, and makes it easy for me to track, install and play those games.

DRM? It's one of the few implementations that helps me manage my rights - identify, acquire, download, install and play.

Re:EA is burning

[Cederic]

Exactly. Now imagine that you hadn't built him a bathroom yet, a wild elephant was trying to attack him when he went to find a bush and it's his wife and children that he set on fire.

That's Dwarf Fortress :)

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "authenticate this game against your distribution platform account to make sure you have the rights to run it" isn't DRM? It's just a very mild form that isn't a problem for any rational and intelligent person.

Don't conflate the built-in Steam DRM with secondary DRM systems that get bolted on to other games that are distributed through Steam. Games without additional DRM just have one layer of DRM. Games with shitty bolted-on DRM have two layers, one that's effective and inobtrusive, and one that may or may not be effective, but annoys the living fuck out of most users that encounter it.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

I'm sorry sir but I am a crusader against bullshit and I'm calling BULLSHIT. A doom scenario without ANY proof or evidence is just fucking bullshit, I can say Bill Gates will fuck goats and zombie Steve Jobs will be brought back by sacrificing newborns and it is JUST as valid a statement because in both cases you are appealing to emotion and don't have jack shit for evidence.

As for not needing DRM? Again bullshit as we DO have evidence and the evidence shows that games with zero DRM are pirated just as much if not more than other games so the honor systems DOES NOT WORK. Steam does ONE THING and it does it quite well, it keep people from just handing out their games by slapping them on a flash stick. What is fucking AMAZING about that is it does so without penalizing the user is ANY way and in fact makes it easier than a retail disc in a LOT of ways. For example did you know that if my kids have the same game I do that they do NOT even have to download the game, that I can just slap the files on a flash and hand it to them? this makes it VERY easy for my oldest who is stuck on a WISP while I'm on cable. You can also back up all your games by simply dragging the folder onto a USB drive so if your OS gets hosed or the drive dies (or in my case you move from a 500GB to a 2TB) you can just drag it off the USB and be back up and running faster than you can be with ANY other software.

So I'm sorry if you thought that just because I call out the FOSSies on THEIR bullshit that I would agree with yours, bullshit IS bullshit IS bullshit and steam is better than every other previous system by a pretty damned large amount. I have plenty of games from the 90s I have to hack and jump through hoops to get to work because the SecuROM or Starforce they have had a 16bit loader and 32bit kernel hooks and I'm on a 64bit OS (and God help you if you fuck up and manage to install one WITHOUT hacking first, I've seen old SecuROM completely destroy a 64bit install) but with Steam? No worries, it doesn't matter if the game came out yesterday or like the Deus Ex I bought came out over a decade ago it "just works".

So either come up with some specific examples of people hurt by Steam that are NOT pirates or fucking cheating bastards and then I'll be happy to concede you have a point, otherwise you are no different than the FOSSies using appeals to emotion and doom scenarios trying to make the other guy look bad with ZERO evidence or anything more than words pulled out of your ass.

Re:EA is burning

[noh8rz10]

i don't play games like that. disgusting.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

Damn check out the old guy, I thought all you 4 digit guys were dead ;-)

But its nice to see I'm not the only one with dozens of games I haven't even gotten to yet, what with bundles and sales and the like I actually have on average MORE games than I have ever had before and a LOT of that is because its so damned easy just to push the button and get a game or five, I too have bought some games like Deus Ex I liked back in the day but can't be bothered to go dig through the boxes in storage to figure out which one has my old games tucked away in it.

At the end of the day this is why I am happy to defend Steam and give my money to Valve because it actually is digital RIGHTS and not digital RESTRICTIONS. I can't find the CD key to that game I bought 3 years ago? no worries I had it registered with Steam so they have it. I need to get a bigger drive? no need to reinstall or mess with registry keys or bullshit, just drag the folder over and fire steam up, no worries. Its gotten to the point that if a game isn't on Steam I'm just not gonna buy it because its just too much bullshit, its easier just to let valve handle all the patches and keys and updates FOR me so that I have the right to get my games where I want and when I want and hassle free. This of course isn't counting the bundle sales which I just fricking LOVE as it takes all the DLC out of the equation, just buy the bundle and I get ALL the DLC included and installed, again hassle free.

So I don't see a problem with Steam, could i hack my games if I needed to? Sure in fact GameCopyWorld has dozens of Steam cracks...but why would I want to? They give me a centralized place where I can have ALL of my games patched and updated and take care of any keys, along with chat and butt simple matchmaking, and all of this at a fair price that is often cheaper than retail...what EXACTLY is the downside? because somebody can think up a "doom scenario" which IRL is about as likely as Zombie Steve Jobs showing up at MacWorld I should care? Show me REAL evidence of somebody that wasn't a cheating bastard (which would have gotten just as banned with a retail game for running aimbots and wallhacks) that has lost a single game because of Steam DRM and THEN I'll be happy to say that they have a point, until then they are just talking out their posterior.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

Again you are using a doom scenario and appealing to emotion, again I say in the future RMS will slaughter children...both are equally valid, both have zero evidence to back them up, both are just as much bullshit.

If Valve had some way to take your games that would be valid but guess what? THEY DON'T because there is this little place called "GameCopyWorld" where there are cracks for the Steam games NO DIFFERENT than for any retail game that you buy. What IS different is that Steam don't buttfuck you if you change OSes, I have games right now I can't play without downloading the pirated version because the old ass SecuROM or Starfuck DRM has a 16bit installed and a 32bit kernel hook and I'm on a 64bit OS...cue the WB"sucker" music. With Steam I can be on ANY Windows from XP-Windows 8, hell if its a game that actually has been ported I can even run it on Linux, NO hassles and NO risk.

So again show me somebody that has bought games from steam and been burned, just one, I can show you plenty of examples of those burnt by retail discs, just watch the video and look at his shelves and realize more than half of those games won't play because while the game code itself is fine, the shitty DRM code won't run so the game won't run. But the ONLY ones I have EVER found that have been supposedly "burned" by Steam turned out they were caught using wallhacks and aimbots and got banned which guess what? They would have got banned off the retail as well because nobody wants their games ruined by cheating douchebags.

So if there is actual evidence lets see it, I've already shown it is just as trivial to bypass Steam as it is ANY retail disc so Valve going under in the future (which with 7 straight years of doubling profits and coming out with a Linux version makes that unlikely) isn't any kind of evidence, its a doom scenario and appeal to emotion. Give us facts, give us citations, don't just say "They could do something bad in the future!" because I could raise Cthulhu in the future and rule the world at his side...hey it COULD happen, right?

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

Hell you don't even have to do THAT because if a drop down menu is too hard for you then you can just copy the steam folder to a USB drive, in fact several of my customers didn't even know there WAS another way to back up games, I showed them how to drag and drop and it was just easier to do. Hell if you and a friend/family member have the same game they don't even have to download it, they can just copy yours to their steamapps folder and Bob's your uncle. my oldest is on a WISP with shitty caps so he'll just buy 2 copies when something he wants is on sale and gift one to me so I can just download it on my cable, still comes out cheaper than paying for the cap overage charges.

Now when you compare that to a retail disc,find the disc and load it, install the game, put in a 25 letter code, download countless patches and hope you don't fuck up and skip one because a LOT of them won't just patch to current, you have to get patch 123 before you can install patch 124 and so on, and if you need to back up? tough shit, better have made a traced install with Comodo program manager or Revo pro or you are fucked.

I think that when you compare that to Steam, drag and drop on USB drive, drag and drop onto new drive, fire up Steam...yeah not really any comparison, steam wins by a pretty big amount.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

Actually that isn't even a valid argument because there are just as many cracks for steam games as there are retail games so NO difference there. Go to gamecopyworld or megagames or any crack site, you can crack any game you bought on steam in less than 20 minutes, again NO different than retail. in fact i would argue the retail comes with serious drawbacks as 1.- requires the disc to be installed and said disc must be in good enough shape to read perfectly, many a game I've had even the tiniest scratch would cause it to fail, and 2.- nearly all discs use some form of DRM like SecuROM that quickly becomes obsolete so not only can you not install the game because for example the SecuROM has a 16bit installer and you are on a 64bit OS, but now you have TWO problems, you gotta get around the SecuROM installer AND patch the game.

So as you can see their argument just doesn't hold water, you are no more at risk from steam than from any retail disc, in fact you have less risk. I do agree about preferring games with Steam to games without, i no longer buy non steam games as its just not worth the hassle, steam gives a better experience than the retail disc does.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Or take Command & Conquer; one of the absolutely core franchises in the history of PC gaming. Actually, EA's history here is more complicated than it might appear. Westwood had itself done all it possibly could to tarnish this brand, with C&C2 and Red Alert 2, both of which felt years behind the curve at the point of release. EA's first move on acquiring the franchise was a bit odd and bewildering - sticking the name onto Generals - a title that clearly had little to do with Command & Conquer (which isn't to say that it was bad, just that it didn't look or feel like a C&C game).

According to Wikipedia:

In August 1998, Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts for $122.5 million in cash. At the time, Westwood had 5% to 6% of the PC game market.[1] In response to EA's buyout, many long-time Westwood employees quit and left Westwood Studios. Because of this and EA's newly imposed demands, games being developed by Westwood Studios at the time were rushed and left unfinished upon their release, namely Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun.[2] All the subsequent games developed by Westwood were also heavily subjected to increased control by Electronic Arts, with some of them being cancelled.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

Companies fail all the time. Even gig ones are not immune to destruction. For this reason, I don't like not having control over the content I pay money for, with the chance that it'll be taken away from me arbitrarily. It's not emotion, not really - it's ensuring long-term security of my purchases. If anything it's you who's using emotion, as if inserting profanity makes your point any better. I'm disappointed you see DRM as still being considered necessary. Nothing's going to change if it's still accepted as a necessary part of gaming business.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

Translation "I don't have anything but bullshit pulled right out of my ass because that is NOTHING but a doom scenario. Companies fail all the time? Nintendo is nearly 100 years old...BAM, your doom scenario is now TOTALLY WORTHLESS because I have just shown that EITHER scenario is just as likely, in fact I would argue that Valve being another Nintendo is MORE likely due to the facts, which are 1.- they have been VERY conservative when it comes to money, not funding any crazy ventures or stupid gambles, 2.;- by releasing a Linux version AND coming up with a completely new way to build consoles by handing out minimum specs to over a dozen companies and letting them compete they have thus made sure even if MSFT closed their doors tomorrow valve would NOT go anywhere, and 3.- By constantly listening to their customers and providing superior service they have one of the highest satisfaction ratings of ANY company, not just in gaming but PERIOD.

so I'm sorry but BULLSHIT IS BULLSHIT IS BULLSHIT and if you call the FOSSies out on their appeals to emtion "ZOMFG M$ could lock everyone out of their PCs in teh future ZOMFG!" then I MUST equally call you out sir because ALL you are providing is appeals to emotion and doom scenarios, not ONE cited harmed individual, not ONE single case where this supposed problem came to pass, NO evidence at all, NOTHING but doom scenarios. Either bring evidence or quit wasting people's time with shit pulled out of your ass because i say Zombie Steve Jobs will kill Ballmer and take over the world...what? prove me wrong.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

Man, you really are an asshole. You can't comprehend that opinions different from yours might have some basis given the world we live in. Pity.

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

If you have to resort to calling names because you can provide nothing but appeals to emotion quit wasting my time, please go away. you did NOT say "In my opinion this is why I won't buy" you did NOTHING but give out one doom scenario after another.

Now you tell me EXACTLY how are you ANY different than RMS and his "Windows 7 sins"? answer...YOU AREN'T, both use appeals to emotion with NO evidence, NO citations, NOTHING but pulling out doom scenarios...well ya know what? Tomorrow Zombie Steve Jobs could release flying monkeys and destroy the USA...BOTH are equally likely, BOTH have the same amount of evidence, BOTH are just so much bullshit.

I'm sorry that while you rightly call out the FOSSies on their bullshit you can't see your own, but i have provided clear evidence and concrete proof that your doom scenarios simply can't happen. hell if valve got struck by a meteor tomorrow and wiped out the company it wouldn't matter if there was anybody to release their steam unlock patch or not, 5 minutes at gamecopyworld or megacracks and you would lose NOTHING, even if Steam was gone tomorrow.

So again show me ONE person, just one mind you, that has lost a single game from Steam. I can show you plenty of guys that have lost money on retail, hell he has had to crack over half his games because the versions of SecuROM or Starfuck just won't run.

so do us BOTH a favor, either admit you are a pirate and just don't want to pay for shit, which that is your business but be honest about it, or admit that like RMS it has to do with ideology and politics and not anything about Steam itself. i mean do you not play games at all? you have the exact same risk with more than 75% of the games out there because all it takes is the company pulling the plug you are SOL, only unlike valve companies like EA HAVE pulled the plug and made retail games worthless, try playing MP on any of the games in the MOH decade pack for instance,or any of their sports games that are more than 2 years old. At least with Steam i can fire up that copy of HL 1 DM and be fragging dozens of people in minutes and that is a 14 year old game.

Dinosaur

[LocalH]

EA has basically sucked ass ever since they stopped making non-game software.

Re:Dinosaur

[Trepidity]

What non-game software did EA used to make? I can't think of anything, and a quick Google doesn't turn anything up.

Re:Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure DeluxePaint, and I seem to recall some sort of music construction software, at the very least.

Re:Dinosaur

[LocalH]

Several applications, most notably for the Amiga (although some of them also came out on other platforms like MS-DOS and the Apple IIgs). Their most notable series was Deluxe Paint, which was used for many of the 16-bit video games that were released on computers and consoles. They also released Deluxe Video (I have a boxed copy of DV3 still sitting here), Deluxe Music Construction Set. They also created the IFF file format specification, which saturated the Amiga platform (with sub-formats such as ILBM for images, ANIM for animation, 8SVX for sound samples, SMUS for sequenced music) and even lives on long after the Amiga's commercial death (AVI, WAV, and ANI formats on the Windows platform are basically little-endian IFF files with different chunk names, and AIFF on the Mac platform is also basically IFF with different chunk names and can either be big- or little-endian, but are most commonly found today as little-endian).

Re:Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

EA has basically sucked ass ever since their first day in business.

FTFY.

Re:Dinosaur

[owlnation]

What non-game software did EA used to make? I can't think of anything, and a quick Google doesn't turn anything up.

DRM? It turns most games into non-games, very quickly.

Re:Dinosaur

[seebs]

DeluxePaint, various related programs. The IFF standard, which remains one of the nicer file formats. Deluxe Music Construction Set. Probably a lot of others forgotten in the mists of time.

Re: Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

SimCity

Re:Dinosaur

[LocalH]

No, their application software was actually quite nice. When they were publishing it, that is.

Re:Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

They also had tons of great games for the C64 and Amiga - Seven Cities of Gold, Mail Order Monsters, Populous - just to name a few that I can still remember. It used to be that the EA logo was a sign you where getting quality software; today it is a warning label.

Re:Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

Deluxe Music Construction set for the Macintosh was published by EA, not technically a game.

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/deluxe-music-construction-set-25

There were a couple other "tools" that EA published in the early to mid 80's, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. They did start out as more than video games, though.

Re:Dinosaur

[Dogtanian]

EA has basically sucked ass ever since their first day in business.

That's odd. Almost everyone who actually *knows* anything about EA's early years (i.e. from the early 1980s to around the early 1990s) would say that they were generally held in pretty high regard back then.

So would you care to clarify your position, or am I correct in assuming you don't know what you're talking about and just made a half-baked kneejerk post?

Re:Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? From the days of the Apple IIe through the Wintel age, they had a quite a few of my favorite titles. Bard's Tale, Populous, Wing Commander, Adventure Construction Set, Command & Conquer. I don't game much now, but they still seem to have some pretty popular titles.

Re:Dinosaur

[Chris Mattern]

EA has basically sucked ass ever since their first day in business.

I'm going to guess that you're under thirty years old. EA, when it was first starting out, was famous for fresh, innovative game design. Archon. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator. Pinball Construction Kit. M.U.L.E. (God, that game was such a classic) The Bard's Tale. Then, in the 1990s, the suits got control, and everything went to hell.

Re:Dinosaur

[sesshomaru]

M.U.L.E., Archon, Archon II:Adept, Mail Order Monsters, Realm of Impossibility.....

Sigh, good times....

But that company is dead, and it's shambling corpse is a zombie devouring the industry...

good riddance!

[Anonymous Coward]

They were big and had money but not good games. Move on shit bags and make shovelware on mobile. That should leave some open space for some good companies.

New consoles coming

[rsilvergun]

and they're slashing workforce? wtf? Is this a sudden dive in quality or is the better tech being used to reduce the number of developers/artists needed? They guy that did the meshes for Metroid Prime spent a month on optimization for the final boss alone. That's not really needed when you've got 8 gigs of ram I suppose.

Re:New consoles coming

[TWX]

Firing too many staff would directly impact the quality of the games produced. But, if your games are already crap to start with then you've already lost the customer base, and unless you can float the labor costs until the next successful game comes out, you're screwed. As you cut staff, what's remaining of the core product gets worse, the customer base shrinks, and you end up losing more money and having to make more cuts.

Re:New consoles coming

[Hadlock]

The medical term for this is "circling the drain"

Re:New consoles coming

[Anonymous Coward]

"the layoffs has reached as much as 10 percent of its workforce" doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means. The actual number could very well be less. One maneuver companies can use is close open reqs against the workforce "reductions". Open reqs are already in the budget thus closing a reqs has a similar, albeit slightly smaller, impact on reducing staffing and budgets.

Re:New consoles coming

[JoeMerchant]

It's called rank & yank. Great to keep a culture of stress and fear bubbling over, which is how they seem to like it at EA.

Re:New consoles coming

[ColdWetDog]

If it's a medical term, then it has to have an ICD-10 code.

Closest I found was:

W17.1XXA Fall into storm drain or manhole, initial encounter -

but perhaps since EA has been screwing up for some time, we should use

Code W17.1XXD, Fall into storm drain or manhole, subsequent encounter or perhaps
Code 17.1XXS, Sequela of falling into storm hole or drain

Re:New consoles coming

[alostpacket]

For anyone else who hasn't heard that term before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve

Re:New consoles coming

[Pseudonym]

Maybe they're firing all the people who bet their careers on the Cell?

Re:New consoles coming

[DrVomact]

and they're slashing workforce? wtf? Is this a sudden dive in quality or is the better tech being used to reduce the number of developers/artists needed? They guy that did the meshes for Metroid Prime spent a month on optimization for the final boss alone. That's not really needed when you've got 8 gigs of ram I suppose.

Ah, young grasshoper, thou hast evidently not learned the subtleties of Scientific Management. Members of this group use a very special sort of language. That is, it's sort of a language, composed of technical terms (a.k.a. "jargon"). To quote TFA:

In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile.

The terms in bold are technical terms that thou might mistake for English. I shall translate them into normal English for thee, so you can fully understand that they are not English:

• aligned: "to break"; ex: "Stalin aligned the party's thinking by killing every member who disagreed with him."
• elements: people, but with the connotation of "objects", or perhaps "resources"; ex: "The Battle of Black Mountain was the outcome of a long series of injustices inflicted by the coal mine bosses on their elements".
• organizational structure: A way to stupefy people until their collective intelligence is roughly equal to a cubic kilometer of crayfish, while making them believe it's the only way to get things done; alternate meaning: a sort of meat grinder; ex: Attila the Hun dominated by means of a very flat but effective organizational structure.
• priorities: Anything that the elite of the organizational structure think is important; ex: "Chickens do not understand the farmer's priorities—until it's too late.
• new technologies: vague; refers to anything considered by the heads of a power structure to be a priority; ex: "Well just keep promising them new technologies and raking in their money until they catch on".
• mobile: They have a getaway strategy.

By the way, I did not comprehend your references to "Metroid Prime" and "8 gigs". Perhaps I am missing one of your little jokes again, ha ha?

Re:New consoles coming

[Hadlock]

The book you want to reference is labeled "Colloquialisms"

Re:New consoles coming

[jma05]

> If it's a medical term, then it has to have an ICD-10 code

As someone who has done clinical terminology work: not at all. Only a fraction of medical terms have representation in ICD-10.

Re:New consoles coming

[sootman]

He should have said "technical term." If you're circling the drain, you aren't in any medical distress... yet.

Re:New consoles coming

[grenadeh]

You're not missing a joke you're just failing to comprehend basic computer jargon. With 8gb of RAM on a PC - not Nintendo, no nintendo system has or will ever have 8gb of anything - you don't need to worry about over-optimizing the model for one boss. Metroid is also not on PC nor ever will be, officially, so that statement made no sense.

Re:New consoles coming

[sesshomaru]

They plan to Zynga-fy their company.

Pity that they are sitting on IP worth millions in competent hands, but those are the breaks. (And they've been sitting on lots of great IP for decades, so this isn't a new phenomenon.)

Oh, as to treatment of employees... it seems I have to link to this at least once in any discussion of EA:

A Cut Above

Re:New consoles coming

[darilon]

I was thinking F60.2 - antisocial personality disorder - would be more appropriate.

Re:New consoles coming

[ColdWetDog]

You certainly can do both. You tend to get better reimbursement with multiple codes anyway.

EA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in the BBQ

HB1's coming in min work time 80 hours a week

[Joe_Dragon]

HB1's coming in min work time 80 hours a week and you will get an boss who will go leaving at 10pm?

Re:HB1's coming in min work time 80 hours a week

[bbelt16ag]

sounds about right dude. its all circling the drain

Re:HB1's coming in min work time 80 hours a week

[guttentag]

This week at EA, a green-haired guy with glasses appears on your computer screen against a red background, waving his arms wildly:

FIRE!

Yowwza! A fire has broken out! If it continues to burn, it will spread through the company. Bulldoze the cubicles around the fire to stop it from spreading. Have you put in your 80 hours this week yet or do you have sufficient firing protection?

Next week at EA, the same green-haired guy appears, a little more pleasant:

Hello! I'm Dr. Wright. You must be the new H-1B worker! Let's practice our teambuilding techniques by building a Power Plant and then adding Residential, Commercial, and Industrial zones to your cubicle. Next, connect all the zones with CAT5 and then add power strips so you can work from any zone of your cubicle and get ahead in the race to not get downsized and deported!

Re:HB1's coming in min work time 80 hours a week

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should start bringing in H1-Bs to replace upper management. Let's see how those assholes like it when their dicks are on the chopping block for a change. CEO: "Can I have my multi-million dollar bonus this year? I worked extra hard to run the company into the ground!" Board/Shareholders: "No, clean out your desk and get the fuck out. We found somebody cheaper."

Not the end

[goldgin]

People think laying off means the end while it doesn't. When big companies lay off early and in what seems out of the blue simply means the math is better. Nowadays I just think big gaming companies hire and layoff whenever they see fit. Even to save for a couple of idle months salaries during the holidays... sad really, considering the increasing percentage of kids studing to be game programmers.

Not news worthy

[BlueCoder]

This is nothing new and is how any business like this should work. Laying off people is normal and healthy unless your talking about 90% of a company. 10% is nothing. It's simply makes room to try new projects and people.

Re:Not news worthy

[MrEricSir]

A company firing 900 people in a single day isn't newsworthy? Seriously?

Re:Not news worthy

[Anonymous Coward]

A company firing 900 people in a single day isn't newsworthy? Seriously?

No. Sorry man.

Re:Not news worthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey our games suck because we overwork our employees and set unrealistic deadlines. I know! Lets improve our products by slashing staff!!
Brilliant!

What a crock of shit. All large layoffs at large companies are motivated by one thing, and one thing only: Making investors happy.
Slashing staff creates short-term profit increases. Wall street gets it's quick fix. Executives get their bonus. 10% of EA's regular working man staff lose their livelyhood, and America dies a little bit more.

To all those about to parrot some drivel about companies serving stockholders: Fuck you.

Re:Not news worthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just that. If your company is about to go public, it's time to dust off that resume and get out ASAP. I've seen it many times: once there are shareholders to keep happy, the work environment turns to shit. Whatever nice perks there were get cut to the bone or scrapped entirely, stress goes through the roof, and there's no reason to stick around anymore. If you decide to stay you're probably going to end up hating your job.

Re:Not news worthy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new and is how any business like this should work. Laying off people is normal and healthy unless your talking about 90% of a company. 10% is nothing. It's simply makes room to try new projects and people.

If you want to know the problem with business take a look in the mirror. People are not disposable. Treat them as such and you'll have a revolving door of users who try to screw you before you screw them and idiots who'll let you burn them out and hang on producing garbage for years before you do manage to fire them. IT moves quickly - without continuity all you produce is ill conceived short term idiocy. Treat people who produce with respect and they'll stay with you, especially in a market where others don't.

Re:Not news worthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire one man, and you are a murderer. Fire millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Fire them all, and you are a god.

Ok, the paraphrasing doesn't quite work, but you get the point....

Re:Not news worthy

[Rogerborg]

You don't "lay off" in order to recruit "new people". In many jurisdictions, you can't do that legally.

Not that EA has ever cared about silly little things like employment laws.

Incidentally, I work for a 10,000+ employ software company, and to my knowledge and belief, they have never "laid off" anyone, ever.

I'd better tell management that consistent year on year growth - and regularly heading up the best companies to work for lists - is "abnormal" and "unhealthy". They're doing it wrong!

Re:Not news worthy

[gl4ss]

you really think that EA does shit games because they don't have enough staff? really? reaaaallly?
if anything they do shit games and have time for middle managers to overwork the people because they have too much staff.

look at their output! the reason they work so much is that they fear of getting slashed if they don't: but do they do anything worthwhile while working those 16 hour days?? fuck no.

have a thousand cooks make one bowl of soup and see how it goes. call it piss-easoup.

Not suprised

[dcmcilrath]

Welcome to capitalism, If you do nothing but make shitty games and piss people off until you get voted worst company in America two years running, you are going to suffer losses, or go bankrupt. (Personally, I keep my fingers crossed)

I do feel really bad for the people who work there though :(

Re:Not suprised

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I do feel really bad for the people who work there though :(

EA has a long history of treating their employees badly. Why would anyone work there in the first place?

Re:Not suprised

[Captain Hook]

Why do you think EA has to buy development companies?

Re:Not suprised

[grenadeh]

EA has turned out a lot of really good games, like Dead Space and Dante's Inferno, which their actual internal studios made. They've also turned out a lot of pure money-grubbing shit like The Sims or the new Sim City, Or Battlefield 3/4.

The rare time when a layoff euphemism isnt

[sethstorm]

Given how EA treats their own, "being free to pursue other opportunities" is not a euphemism for a layoff but a truthful declaration of freedom. This is probably the nicest thing that EA is willing to do for its own.

Console dinosaur?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the console dinosaur that's trying to fight extinction by evolving into a bigger mobile player

Is "CONSOLES ARE DYING" the new "PC GAMING IS DYING"? Mobile gaming will not replace console gaming the same way console gaming did not and likely cannot ever truly replace PC gaming. Also, EA is like 30 years old and started off as a PC gaming company. They're going to adapt to the market like they have been for decades. As much as people pretend to hate them, they still buy their games every single year. Unless that changes EA is not going anywhere.

And by the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

EA has a lot of seasonal/contract employees that they layoff every summer because that's just how their yearly dev cycle shakes out.

Because they weren't overworked enough as it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

EA has a horrible reputation for demanding employees basically give them their entire lives, and then spitting them out when the exhaustion inevitably sets in. Reducing the number of workers isn't going to help this.

Re:New consoles coming or are they

[WillAffleckUW]

Well, I've seen at least one of their online games announce a shut down, so it does mean what we think it means.

They won the Golden Poo 2 years in a row.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like they are shooting for 3 years.

Reference: Consumerist's Worst Company in America.

How About Cutting the DRM Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, EA, the best cost-cutting you could do would be to lose the DRM.

Three cheers for EA on fire

[Anonymous Coward]

The best thing that can happen to computer gaming is for EA, Ubisoft and the like to burn in hell while choking on a bag of dicks.

Don't think of it as downsizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it as freeing them from their misery.

Tragedy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Something must be done about these violent video games.
You know you've created a monster when the game companies themselves assault their employees.

FPS

[froth-bite]

First Person Slashed ?

Must be those nasty pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

stealing all the profit. Need more restrictive DRM to fight pirating. Quick!

Artificial Scarcity Screws Artists

[VortexCortex]

Companies that gather their wealth by leveraging artificial scarcity (bits are in infinite supply) can easily slash their workforces and continue profiting by their infinite price hikes:
if ( supply == infinity ) price = 0; // Regardless of cost to create.
If price is greater than zero then the markup tends toward infinity.

If instead the company was marketing something that is actually scarce -- it's ability to do work: configure the bits -- then their profit would be directly related to the capacity to perform work and create new content. Right now their profits are decoupled from the actual artists capable of creating works -- The people you want your money to go towards when you pay for the works. This system of publishing is flawed: By having no guarantee of even interest from the customers the publishers gamble with the fate of those making the works. If they make a great product one round, but stumble once, they are cut away as failures.

All other labor markets do not use artificial scarcity. Artists can be commissioned to make works and they can rest secure in that their efforts have been funded. Mechanics and Home builders and all service industry employees get guarantees for their work in the form of employment contracts, the laws of the land ensure they will get paid for their work. The workers under a Publisher are actually guaranteed via employment contract, but the publisher itself has no assurance that the real customer will pay the price sufficient to keep producing works.

Clearly the problem is copyright -- The enforcement of artificial scarcity. You don't own your work, the customer who paid for it does. Only by the economically untenable practice of enforcing copyright are the producers able to sell something that is in infinite supply (copies). It would be like selling ice to Eskimos, or sand to beach bums.

Interestingly, crowd funding has come a long way towards cutting out the Publishers who seek to maximize profit far beyond the cost to create works. Instead you can ask the customers directly what works they would like to fund, and then do the work for the agreed upon price, then give the works to all the public for free (because they already paid to have it created). To the artists themselves this is no different than working under the Publisher. Sadly, greed prevents most of the independent developers who crowd-source funding from avoiding the artificial scarcity racket -- They fall to the same moronic methods that the Publishers do when they sell copies. The publishers must inflate price just to justify their own existence, but their practices do not need to exist. Instead, they could simply do more work to make more money -- get assurances from the customers for payment and make new things -- and never have to worry about being laid off again.

I write this to inform any former EA employees (or anyone in their positions) that there is another way to make a living -- The way I do: You can have a solid future, but you must change your damn minds about copyrights. Market your ability to do work directly to the customers, like all others in labor markets do. If you can't manage to come to grips with the reality that selling Ice to Eskimos is a laughable business strategy for everyone involved, then at least unionize you fools! Crunch Time?! NO. That reeks of incompetent management, and abusive manipulation. It is no coincidence that the workers having the problems of instability, churn and abuse to this degree are also those that ultimately make profits by way of artificial scarcity...

Re:Artificial Scarcity Screws Artists

[drinkypoo]

If you can't manage to come to grips with the reality that selling Ice to Eskimos is a laughable business strategy for everyone involved, then at least unionize you fools!

The fool is the person who expects unionization in an industry in which there are dozens of resumes for every job. Remember when literally half the IT workers in the USA had no jobs? Yeah, unionization would have had to have happened before that. Remember when H1-B abuse began to be a significant thing? Yeah, unionization would have had to have happened before that, too.

Re:Artificial Scarcity Screws Artists

[grenadeh]

Well most of what you said is accurate but you're completely false on the 4th paragraph. I don't agree with copyright by any means, most people don't, but what you said is simply contradictory to reality. Customers do not own anything that is copyrighted, after they purchase it. Copyrighted material is not a box of poptarts you can do whatever you want with. If the customer owned the rights to the game they bought, that would completely invalidate millions of dollars of investment and years of man-hours from dozens of people that went in to creating the product. So that's completely ignorant. You may not agree with copyright - again, there's little reason to - but it is does have one legitimate purpose and that is to protect the creator. Without copyright it's completely fine for every bum on the street to sell something and profit off of it without a single cent going to the people who are supposed to get money, and that's not okay. Also, crowdfunding does not equal a free copy for every contributor. Your contribution was not made with the agreement that you get the game for free, it was made in bona fide because you supported the cause. Nor should it.

Re:Artificial Scarcity Screws Artists

[grenadeh]

Grammar please. Imperfect subjunctive. Would have had to happen.

The level of ignorance in this thread

[Anonymous Coward]

Baffles me...
EA has a large number of studios all with different cultures, processes, and management. Given the size of the company there WILL be crappy work environments. Stories about these seem to get heavily magnified by the Internet lens. I've heard way worse things about other companies, but EA being one of the largest seems the easiest to hate.
Secondly, how long do you fund a money losing team/studio. At some point you have to pull the plug. If it was your money in the game you would've had it out way sooner.
Nonetheless mass layoffs are really shitty and I really feel for those devs since I'm sure some where great at their job.

Re:The level of ignorance in this thread

[Anonymous Coward]

What's baffling about it? EA has been making crap and ruining the companies it buys up for decades. Ask any Ultima fan. They're just finally getting what's due and nobody feels sorry for them.

Well, nobody who isn't late to the scene anyway.

Re:The level of ignorance in this thread

[gl4ss]

Baffles me...
EA has a large number of studios all with different cultures, processes, and management. Given the size of the company there WILL be crappy work environments. Stories about these seem to get heavily magnified by the Internet lens. I've heard way worse things about other companies, but EA being one of the largest seems the easiest to hate.
Secondly, how long do you fund a money losing team/studio. At some point you have to pull the plug. If it was your money in the game you would've had it out way sooner.
Nonetheless mass layoffs are really shitty and I really feel for those devs since I'm sure some where great at their job.

why don't you go play dragon age II. look, it's not the "given the size of the company" that gets them hate. it's their 17 year or so consistent run in buying studios and exactly 6 months later that studios output turns to _shit_. when they're purely publishing for someone else then it's not so bad, but if the game is a hit then they in a little while own the studio and the next product is again shit.

Re:The level of ignorance in this thread

[sandytaru]

A friend of mine worked for EA for about a year in Japan as a programmer. He quit because they treat their employees just as poorly as they treat their customers. He now works for a smaller company for a lesser salary, but still makes plenty enough and actually gets to go home for dinner with his wife during the week.

Re:The level of ignorance in this thread

[Anonymous Coward]

actually gets to go home

This is key, and what makes EA (and many others) a bad place to work for. Sweatshop anyone?

Re:The level of ignorance in this thread

[grenadeh]

One of my fav things is how EA ruined Visceral Games.Granted, Visceral Games was EA Redwood Studios and I'm pretty sure they were never an independent studio at any point, but EA still ruins everything. You can't say Visceral sucks either. Dante's Inferno and Dead Space 1 were both masterpieces of games. Even Dead Space 2 was still quite good. As soon as EA put the pressure on them even more, they dropped the ball and EA axed dead space.

Oh... they're reducing the number of employees

[Rogerborg]

Because when I read "EA" and "slashing workforce" I half expected it to be about "the cubicle stabbings will continue until morale improves."

Dont fire the workers, fire the managers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Saves much more money and probably will remove more dickheads.

Totally retarded.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were in a position to make $100 per hour instead of $10 would you do it despite the fact that your lifestyle can be maintained with a $10 per hour salary? How about working 80 hours per week instead of 40 for the same salary?

That's what you're saying above. Bits are in infinite supply, but talent and the structure to get that talent to produce something epic is not. The company takes a giant risk producing a game that may or may not return profits. Its like any VC structure: you're gonna have flops and your blockbusters have to subsidize those flops.

So if you don't like it, stop blaming copyright. Copyright is the only thing we have that assures that anyone, or any company, will take the massive risks involved in producing a major title which can run upwards of $50m+ to make. That longterm copyright is broke I agree (wtf Disney), but short-term copyright is near perfect.

Making money like you do cannot and does not product the volume of epic works that the copyright structure allows for. There are very very few massively distributed collaborative not-for-profit efforts out there and many of them are funded by a patron.

Re:Totally retarded.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep drinking the cool-aid.

Re:Totally retarded.

[icebraining]

Copyright is the only thing we have that assures that anyone, or any company, will take the massive risks involved in
producing a major title which can run upwards of $50m+ to make.

And slavery was the only way to build the pyramids. And like then, the ends still don't justify the means on any sane moral code.

And before you come and say "hurr, but copyright is not slavery!!1", go learn how analogies work.

Look on the other side of the slash?

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Yes, EA is a vile company that has made poor decisions over the years.

But the comments here are typically one-sided commentary that match the /. state of mind.

There are lots of people losing their jobs because of a few greedy idiot execs at the top. I wouldn't call the people getting laid off "bad rubbish" or throw out "good riddance". Often people get caught up a company and in spite of their best intentions, just cannot change a company culture. Sure, the writing has been on the wall at EA for a while, and it would be surprising if there was not a mass exodus of the left overs remaining at EA over the coming months, but its a shame when people have to lose their jobs because of poor management and bad executive decisions.

Hopefully, like with so many other past layoffs at gaming companies, the victims of one company rise up and create a new company and hopefully don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

Discourage casual copying

[tepples]

I sincerely believe DRM is not necessary in this day and age

Even if DRM is ineffective and unnecessary, what better solution can you think of to discourage casual copying of video games that aren't MMO?

Re:Discourage casual copying

[drinkypoo]

Even if DRM is ineffective and unnecessary, what better solution can you think of to discourage casual copying of video games that aren't MMO?

It's not only ineffective and unnecessary, it also results in returns due to paying customers who can't play the game, unlike the people who didn't pay for it who will be able to play it fine once your copy protection is removed. Doing nothing or even asking nicely is therefore a better solution.

Re:Discourage casual copying

[sdreader]

Casual copying? What we've got now is by far the easiest method of obtaining games for free than we've ever had. You no longer need to find someone with a physical disc to obtain games for free any longer - we've got torrent sites where you pick whatever your heart desires from a very long list, download the game, copy the files from the crack folder which will no doubt be included on the ISO, then off you go. The only real investment in knowledge is in the setting up of a torrent client - which is trivial these days particularly with something automatic like uTorrent.

The level of skill in knowing and undertaking the acquisition of pirated games is very low these days. It's a pretty casual-level task from what I can tell, all it takes is knowing how to do it in the first place, which anyone who's partial to the exercise can Google for anyway.

In other words, don't bother with trying to block "casual piracy" if the DRM has the potential to cause problems for those who are paying you money for the real deal anyway.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

[tepples]

You're talking about video games right? Those things that you play for a week or two and then never touch again?

One question for you: Why did people continue playing Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001) even after its sequel Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out over six years later? And why are people modding Brawl to act more like Melee? And why are people still playing Tetris, which is nearing 30 years old?

Besides, cracking game protection has been a tried and true entry into assembly and disassembly skills

Nowadays, it's much more likely to get one hauled into court. Just ask George Hotz, who cracked the PS3 just so he could continue to run homebrew on it after Sony took away Other OS.

Offline multiplayer; crappy connections

[tepples]

Some people don't mind "always on" DRM because they only play multiplayer games anyway where not having a connection to the internet means not playing the game

Multiplayer doesn't necessarily require the Internet. It can use one machine, one big screen, and multiple gamepads. Or it can use multiple machines on a LAN.

others may consider that a completely unacceptable restriction because their connection is crappy

Examples of such a crappy connection include a connection that works only at home, not in a vehicle in which one uses a laptop while riding as a passenger.

No cellular radio on many tablets

[tepples]

They believe that the mobile gaming ecosystem is more friendly to obtrusive DRM, and they are partly right.

I'm not understanding what part you meant by "partly". How would a game made for a tablet support digital restrictions management that requires a persistent connection to the Internet? A Kindle Fire doesn't have a cellular radio to connect to the Internet from the inside of a vehicle. Nor does a Wi-Fi iPad or Wi-Fi Nexus 7. Even smartphones and those tablets that do have a cellular radio often lose Internet access part-way through the month because the user hit the cap.

the removal of an obstructionist whore of a company like EA from that market will only create market opportunities for new game publishers.

Until EA starts suing "new game publishers" for making their games allegedly too similar to the games that EA made decades ago.

market opportunities for new game publishers. The money in console gaming isn't gone

How do "new game publishers" become licensed to develop for consoles in the first place? Console makers want "relevant industry experience".

Compare to drugs

[tepples]

All other labor markets do not use artificial scarcity. [...] The workers under a Publisher are actually guaranteed via employment contract, but the publisher itself has no assurance that the real customer will pay the price sufficient to keep producing works.

"All other" is a strong word. Consider development of new drugs. There's no guarantee that a particular compound will survive clinical trials and gain regulatory approval.

Sadly, greed prevents most of the independent developers who crowd-source funding from avoiding the artificial scarcity racket -- They fall to the same moronic methods that the Publishers do when they sell copies.

And sometimes this greed is forced on developers. Some video game genres aren't really suitable for mobile because they're better with a gamepad than with a touch screen. The only well-known platforms that ship with a gamepad are consoles, which have no way for a developer to release a game free of digital restrictions management because if a developer could, it'd allow the developer to shortcut both the console maker's quality control (can't have another 1983-1984 crash) and its cut of sales revenue.

One word:

[Darth Snowshoe]

BALLBLAZER!

Re:One word:

[Darth Snowshoe]

Whoops, sorry, brain freeze. What I really meant to say was "Archon!"

Happy 30th EA!

[Puzzles]

Hey everyone, happy 30th anniversary. O, and by the way, you're all fired.

And end up with 90 percent infringement

[tepples]

Doing nothing or even asking nicely is therefore a better solution [than digital restrictions management].

One developer tried this and ended up with 90 percent infringement. What should a different developer do differently in order to release a video game without digital restrictions management and without ending up with 90 percent infringement?

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[sdreader]

Seems to have worked out for the guys who made the Witcher series. They're in the process of making their third game, and all of them are available without DRM. Also seems to have worked out well for the guys who made the Penumbra and Amnesia horror games. Both groups are indie developers, but their games are class so they must be doing something right.

It doesn't matter how many people are pirating your game. All that matters is how many people are BUYING your game. If you somehow manage to prevent people from successfully pirating your game, that does not automatically mean they'll buy it. More than likely they'll just move onto pirating something else. So the only real reason for getting fussy with the number of people pirating your game is because you're getting annoyed with people having fun at your expense for free, which I tend to understand. But since Steam is already cracked quite easily (and hence any games which are on it), the distinction is, for the most part, moot.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[war4peace]

Yeah well most of Witcher games were bought on... guess. Steam, yeah, that's right. Still a form of DRM. Go figure...

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[sdreader]

Do you actually know this for a fact though? I'm aware Steam's the largest digital distribution platform on the PC, but anyone who bought the game anywhere other than GOG is a fool, because apart from being DRM-free the GOG version also contains a shitload of extra content (music, videos, art, etc) that's not available with the Steam version I believe.

As a side note, too many games are only released through Steam nowadays, which is a damn shame. At least games like the Witcher are sold at GOG as well (with said extras), which goes to show the value of having choice in where you can get your games.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[BitZtream]

In that article ... at that time ... I would have been unaware that those games even existed on PC. 2 years later, I own World of Goo on every device 'mobile' device in the house ... I still was unaware of World of Goo on the PC.

Perhaps the reason those games got 90% piracy has a little something to do with how they are released and marketed.

If The Pirate Bay is the most marketing you do, than yes, 90% of the market is going to be pirated.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[tepples]

It doesn't matter how many people are pirating your game. All that matters is how many people are BUYING your game.

Infringers will still tie up the resources of tech support, tie up servers used for achievements or online multiplayer matchmaking, and leave bad reviews.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing nothing or even asking nicely is therefore a better solution [than digital restrictions management].

One developer tried this and ended up with 90 percent infringement. What should a different developer do differently in order to release a video game without digital restrictions management and without ending up with 90 percent infringement?

90% infringement is the going rate regardless of whether there's DRM involved or not. Music is effectively DRM free at this point, not shockingly most of the normal methods of acquiring music by trading money remain. Yes there's argument over streaming, locker services, and other disruptive technology, but music still gets made and paid for.

Music files are smaller, pose less risk of viral infection digitally, and more people have copies, yet we don't see piracy destroying the industry.

You're under the impression that piracy must be curbed, I'm telling you piracy simply doesn't matter no matter what scary numbers someone shows you.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[war4peace]

Frankly I couldn't care less about extras. They mean nothing to me. Of course, we're entitled to have different opinions, but all I need is the game itself.
But to your point, Steam version is like that:

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition takes all of the acclaimed gameplay that garnered the original game more than 90 awards, and perfects it with a number of gameplay and technical improvements.

Superior dialogue and cutscenes - The developers have re-recorded and rewritten more than 5000 lines of dialogue in English and redone the entire German edition to create more a more consistent experience, while adding more than 200 gesture animations to make characters behave more believably in dialogue and cutscenes.
Enhanced inventory - The new inventory system makes item use and organization less complicated by introducing a separate sack for any alchemical ingredients, as well as a simple sort-and-stack function. Spend less time managing your inventory and more time playing the game.
Technical improvements - The enhancements made to the technical side of the game are too numerous to list, but a few of the highlights include greatly reduced loading times, greater stability, improved combat responsiveness, faster inventory loading, the option to turn autosave on or off, and more.
Character differentiation system - To add more variety to NPC and monster appearances, we've added a new character differentiation system that randomizes the appearance and colors of dozens of in-game models.
The Package - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is more than just a better version of last year's RPG of the Year. The premium packaging would usually infer some sort of Collector's Edition... but at the price of a regular game, it's simply a great value. In your download you'll also get: Multilingual game disc, D'jinni Adventure Editor, Two new adventures offering 5+ hours of gameplay, Official Soundtrack, Music Inspired by The Witcher album, Making-of videos, Official game guide, Map of The Witcher's world

So I would say that yes, Steam offers the same deal.

Re:And end up with 90 percent infringement

[sdreader]

Tech support perhaps, although I would have thought most people would Google first to try to fix any issues. As for servers used for achievements and multiplayer features, nope. Most Steam-cracked games basically work by permanently enabling online mode (as far as the game's concerned), hence the servers aren't touched. Just... trust that I know this.

As for bad reviews, I have yet to see a good game get a swath of bad reviews (enough to have a measurable impact on the overall review score of say Metacritic) for issues related to the pirated version.

Right

[grenadeh]

More a matter of them downsizing because they have failed hardcore in the past 2 years at everything and are not doing well at all. Step 1. fire everyone.

Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their own fault. I for one haven't purchased an EA game since they forced their Origin spyware crap onto people. I refuse to use it as it gives me no option to NOT give any information.

So to date, they have lost out on at least $300 from me alone, and I am not alone in my view. How much more are they losing because they want to access information they have no right to access?

Steam DRM

[phorm]

While I love Steam, I have one complaint about their DRM/gameplay model. It only allows 1-game-per-account to be played simultaneously.
If I've got an account with 50 games, I want to play game A and my buddy who's over wants to play game B, it won't happen (or at least not if there's an online component).

If Steam is going to be looking at game consoles etc, they need to fix it to be
    1-simultaneous-play-per-game
rather than
    1-simultaneous-play-per-account

Re:Steam DRM

[hairyfeet]

So have your buddy buy his own games? Not like games on Steam are high and in many cases you can buy bundles of 4 so if you have friends that want to play you can just gift it to them.

Considering how many of the games use gamespy to tie a game into an account frankly you can't do that with a retail game either, your friend would have to have a gamespy account with that game in it or you are right back where you started. At least with steam i can pick ANY game I have and go straight to the store page and pick up a copy for a friend or just send him the link, try doing that with GFWL and see how quickly you just wanna scream as there is NO easy way to just go to a game or DLC and gift it, none.

Re:Steam DRM

[darkfeline]

Can't one of you just play offline (assuming single player game)? You won't earn achievements, but really now.

Re:Steam DRM

[phorm]

"(or at least not if there's an online component)"

Usually this is in cases where there are a bunch of buddies over and we're playing different games across varying PC's

In the old days you'd have both games installed on multiple PC's, and - though some disc-swapping or logins might be required - two people could play game "A" without impacting another two people playing game "B"

Re:Steam DRM

[darkfeline]

Sorry, didn't see that.

two people could play game "A"

Er, no? Tell me you can buy one copy of SC2 or GW2 or even SC1 or any online game and tell me you can both play online with one copy. You can't (shouldn't be able to, anyway).

Now, certainly, you would be able to play game A online while your buddy plays game B online, but then people'll start pooling Steam accounts to share games, which is bad news for devs. And besides, is it really that bad? Just buy an extra copy for your friend when it's on sale. The point (one of them, anyway) of DRM is to make sure you can't give used games to others. Now, you can disagree with this on principle, but at least the way Steam does it, they don't gouge you for money, plus the DRM doesn't get in the way of you legitimately playing it, does it? Steam gives you two games for the price of one, and now you're asking for the right to share the games with others as well? Check your privileges (not meant condescendingly).

Re:Steam DRM

[phorm]

SC1? Certainly you could. The ability to spawn a multiplayer-only install for buddies was one of the best parts. Each disc actually had a full installer and a multiplayer-only copy, which required at least one legit CD-key per X players.
SC2 not so much.

However, I believe you missed my point.

If I've bought two copies of Starcraft II, and two copies of Battlefield 2 (or whatever), then with four PC's we could have two people on SC2, and two people on BF3. That's a total of four players (the number of games I have legit copies of). Obviously now EA has jumped on the gaming-platform bandwagon which similarly will restrict simultaneous gaming for newer stuff.

now you're asking for the right to share the games with others as well

Well yes, I did pay for them, after all.
If I've got two steam account, each with a copy of L4D2 and AOE2... then we can have a total of ... two players (the total number of steam accounts). That's despite the fact that I've paid for all four copies. Not everyone is a hardcore gamer. Some friends don't even game outside of gatherings so it's not likely they'll be buying for the twice-a-year play experience.

Now keep in mind that Valve is apparently pursuing a console. How's that going to work?
Thing of the uproar when people hear rumours of always-on DRM and single-console restrictions for Xbox/PS3. Right now I can take a disc to a buddy's place and play (whatever). How's that going to work for Steam? Will my wife be able to play [game that's paid for X] while I'm logged into the same account playing [game that's paid for Y] on a different console?

DRM doesn't get in the way of you legitimately playing it, does it

Yes, yes it does. As per the above, I've paid for the games. Some on sale, some at full price. There were sales before Steam, you know, and a bigger used-game market (essentially Steam-sales somewhat replace that). If I can't simultaneously use two things I've paid for, it's a flaw in the system.

Now should I be able to lend five of my buddies a Steam login so that they can all play L4D2 on one account? No, that's not cool (well, unless Valve allows multiplayer-only spawn) because there's only one paid-for copy.

How could Valve solve this? In days past, individual games had CD-keys, which is essentially a unique identifier for a single copy. The storage of that could be automatic, and Valve could simply disallow having two simultaneous runs of the same unique-ID (the same way as old games used to do if you tried to jump online with two non-unique game copies).
Alternately, perhaps allow multiple instances of a single account from single originating public-IP.

I'm not asking for the right to share games with others in different locations - though that would be cool too as long as it's per-license restricted - I'm asking for the right to use the games I've purchased.

cheapt jordan shoes,Air max shoes,wallet sale

[cheap jordan shoes2]

Wonderful. Share a website with you , ( http://www.sheptrade.com/ ) Believe you will love it. We accept any form of payment. This is a shopping paradise We need your support and trust